Johnathan Bi
@JohnathanBi • 32,167 subscribers
Newsletter on philosophy/religion/technology: https://t.co/8jgM4XELH9 Founding Team Opto, Cosmos Phil & CS @Columbia Canadian Math Olympiad
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Homer didn’t write the Odyssey, he didn’t write the Iliad. In fact, there was no person ever called “Homer”. This is not a conspiracy theory but the considered conclusion of Harvard’s Gregory Nagy after a lifetime of research. Professor Nagy is the most respected Homerist alive and his defining contribution is to uncover the 3000 year old mystery of who (or what) actually produced the epics. This interview will examine two of Professor Nagy’s radical claims: 1. The Homeric epics were not written, carefully edited, and memorized for performance. They were created on the fly while being sung! That is to say the Greeks somehow developed a method to create amazingly intricate, 12-15 thousand line poems in the middle of a performance. 2. The Homeric Epics were not composed by an individual but cumulatively by countless poets over a millenia. There was never a person called “Homer”.
Johnathan Bi3,051,973 Aufrufe • vor 2 Tagen
In 1776, people immigrated to America for EQUALITY, to live without lords or kings. In 2016, I came to America for her INEQUALITY, to learn from billionaires and intellectuals who have achieved an unequaled greatness. America has abandoned its founding principle of equality, but that’s not a completely bad thing. Canada, where I came from, scoffs at American inequality, but the best Canadians immigrate for it. We come here precisely for this inequality and the unbounded limits of achievement it opens up. In Canada, all humans are given more respect regardless of their achievements. Society is materially and socially more equal. But when you are given a participation trophy for just being human, there isn't the same lust for success. The same sentiments of equality so hospitable to the majority are suffocating for the ambitious. Ask yourself this American: why do the best talent from stable, rich, lawful western democracies all want to come to the US? What do you have that no one else does? • If they wanted equality they would go to Norway. • If they loved private property, New Zealand protects it more. • If they craved rule of law they could go to Canada. • If they were tired of European civilization and wanted to immerse themselves in non-western cultures, they would go to Paris. What you have that none of the other democracies do is radical inequality, and that’s why we are here. The vast chasm between the billionaire and the struggling worker, the Ivy League chair and the wandering community college adjunct, the best private healthcare in the world and no healthcare at all sets Americans into a frenzy, a frenzy that most would be happier living without. Most Americans would live better lives in Canada. But the same fire that makes chaff smoke makes gold glow. And a tiny minority of you are able to capture that frenzy, that lightning in a bottle, and transmute it towards great ends. That energy is what we came to America for. America is unrecognizable from that of 250 years ago. When Tocqueville visited, just a few decades after the founding, America was so equal that one of his chief worries was that this equality would result in a complacent mediocrity that left no verticality for greatness. Today that has flipped, America is the only country in the western hemisphere hospitable to greatness, but at the terrible cost of not just equality but its very nature as a democracy. America has increasingly taken on the features of aristocracy it once stood proudly against. But just because America betrayed, what Tocqueville considered, its founding principle, that doesn’t mean you Americans can no longer embrace it: • Rome was first a kingdom, and there was beauty in Romulus’ founding, in Numa’s laws, in Lucretia’s suicide. • ~250 years later, Rome became a republic, it defined itself against the Tarquins and kingship. But there was new republican beauty to be found: in Regulus’ honor, in Cicero’s oratory, in Cato’s stubbornness. • And then Rome changed again, into an empire. It betrayed everything the republic stood for. But there was a new imperial beauty to be found: in Vergil’s lines, in the wisdom of the five good Emperors, in the conversion of Constantine. America has no less betrayed who she was, but that does not mean there is not a new aristocratic beauty to fall in love with in your great country. This lecture, given at the very Chateau where Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America, is my love letter to this new America; to a country that has accepted me with open arms, furnished me with unlimited freedom and resources; a country in which ten years ago I came not knowing a single soul, and now call home and have formed my deepest relationships; a country in which I’ve in turn come to love, not for who she was, not for who she would like to be, but for who she has become. And my gift to America on her 250th birthday is to help you see and delight in your new republic through my fresh foreign eyes that never saw what was and does not long for it, but only sees what is and delights in it. As Tocqueville says, “the majority … lives in perpetual adoration of itself; only foreigners or experience can make certain truths reach the ears of the Americans.” This is America’s next chapter, a mixed democratic-aristocratic constitution or, if it's easier to swallow, “Democracy with American Characteristics.”
Johnathan Bi134,543 Aufrufe • vor 12 Tagen
After interviewing dozens of leading AI experts and reading hundreds of books, these 4 books stood out as the most important for the AI-age. If you truly understand their insights, not only will you survive this revolution, you will thrive. 1. Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic 2. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 3. Rene Girard’s Deceit Desire and the Novel 4. Jeff Kripal’s Secret Body People today are mostly worried about AI taking their job or the bubble bursting, but Weber’s Protestant Ethic is going to show you the problem is much greater. The right comparison isn't the dotcom bubble or 2008. It’s Darwin which shook the faith of an entire civilization or the industrial revolution which required two world wars to sort out. That's the scale of the AI challenge and Weber’s text helps put that in view. The next 3 books will teach you where to spend your time now in order to thrive in this radically new world order. I've already made major life decisions based on their insights to AI-proof my life and career. Why should we go looking for guidance in “outdated” works of philosophy? Because we need to rethink everything from the ground up from first principles. And if you are just stuck on learning how to prompt engineer or following the latest fads on X you are underestimating the size of the earthquake that is about to hit us by magnitudes. These are the crucial insights each of these 4 texts have to offer us in the AI age… Timestamps: 0:00 0. Introduction 1:42 1. Weber’s Protestant Ethic 5:41 2. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 9:48 3. Girard’s Deceit Desire and the Novel 14:25 4. Kripal’s Secret Body
Johnathan Bi201,147 Aufrufe • vor 25 Tagen
1. Homosexuals have privileged access to God. 2. Orthodox religions (e.g. Christianity, Hinduism) favor sublimated homosexuality over active heterosexuality. 3. Many of the great religious leaders themselves were queer. These are the surprising claims of my guest, Rice professor Jeff Kripal. Jeff grew up Catholic and went to seminary but had to leave because, as a straight man, he was alienated by the overwhelmingly homoerotic environment. Jeff then dedicated his early career to investigating the unlikely bedfellows of mysticism and homosexuality and found the same pattern again and again not just in Christianity, but Hinduism, Sufism and every major mystical tradition: whenever a tradition elevates celibacy it attracts homosexuals who would otherwise be persecuted in society. These homosexuals would, in turn, transmute their sublimated homoeroticism into spiritual practice and form the vanguard of the religion. This is Jeff’s reading of not just religious followers but religious leaders like Jesus and Ramakrishna themselves! While I struggle to get onboard with the extent of Jeff’s conclusions, his explanations helped illuminate a puzzle I’ve been pondering for a long time: what explains the overwhelming creative contributions of homosexuals? • Why does pederasty pop up in every elite culture including our own (Hollywood, SF, British boarding schools)? • Why is this group, less than 3% of society, so dominant in creative fields such as academia, media, and technology? • Why are homosexuals overrepresented in positions of power, while being persecuted in almost every pre-modern society? Even if I remain unconvinced about the full extent of Jeff’s otherworldly thesis, his arguments have given me great insight into homosexuals’ secular creativity. Timestamps: 00:00 0. Introduction 11:38 1. Why Mysticism Selects for Same-Sex Desire 21:06 2. A Queer Reading of Jesus 32:47 3. Why a Sexless Jesus Won Out 41:27 4. Jeff’s Encounter with a Hindu Diety 53:30 5. Mysticism as Hedonism 1:04:07 6. Plato on Love, Sex, and Divinity 1:07:40 7. Sex Runs Through the Supernatural
Johnathan Bi249,342 Aufrufe • vor 1 Monat
My biggest issue with Nietzsche was his pathetic life: an incel, sickly, destitute, no readership in his sane years. When you look at modern far-right Nietzscheans, it's never the blonde beast or übermensch, it's always someone very much like Nietzsche: unattractive, marginalized, and resentful. Makes you wonder if only those who are completely powerless fetishize power so much.
Johnathan Bi2,617,540 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
James Liang is a Chinese billionaire who pays his employees 50K for every baby they make, who is launching a 1 Billion fund to pay PHD students to have children, here’s why… James is the cofounder of worth $50B, he was also a prodigy academic who started college at 15, got a PHD at Stanford and then became a professor at China's top university PKU. He straddles not just the active and the contemplative life but elite circles across US and China. Sitting at this unique intersection helped him articulate his most important idea: that demography is one of the most overlooked factors that impact innovation. The problem with an aging population is not just the financial strain on pensions but a cultural, technological stagnation that will suffocate any creative act. Gerontocracies (rule by the old) result in sterile, hierarchical, and unimaginative futures. If humanity is going to continue innovating, humanity needs to stay young. James believes offering money alone can significantly fix the problem and is putting his money where his mouth is. In this interview, you will learn about the coming population collapse from one of the world’s foremost demography experts and what to do about it from one of the world’s most resourceful entrepreneurs. Timestamps: 2:02 Paying Employees to Have Babies 3:09 Low Fertility Kills Innovation 11:05 The Young Want Merit. The Old Want Hierarchy 15:42 Small Population = Little Innovation 33:50 Why a CEO Left for Academia 48:33 Humanity Craves Novelty 55:14 True Innovation Creates Heritage 1:16:32 AI Won’t Lead Innovation
Johnathan Bi560,571 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
Nothing has made me more optimistic about our AI future than visiting Alpha School. The dominant doomer narrative is that, even if we solve alignment, AI will automate so much that humans will be left with nothing but meaningless hedonism. As AI does more and more humans are reduced to less and less. Alpha School shows us that there exists an alternate path where human potential is realized, not truncated, by AI and where work becomes more meaningful. I shadowed Alpha’s co-founder MacKenzie Price (MacKenzie Price) for a week and was blown away by what I saw. They’ve replaced all of their human teachers with AI tutors that are able to offer bespoke, custom instruction to each student — the same kind of tutorship previously reserved for the aristocracy now scalable through technology. Her students spend only 2 hours a day on academics and yet consistently score 99th percentile in standardized testing and go on to study in the best colleges in the world. But what about teachers who now have all lost their jobs? They are hired as “guides” who dedicate all of their time to understanding and motivating their students instead of grading papers on the same basic material over and over again. For many, AI has freed them to spend more time on what attracted them to teaching in the first place — building human connection and inspiring the next generation. In this interview, we dive deep into Alpha’s philosophy and gain insight into the perennial questions in the philosophy of education: - Can virtue be taught? - Does nature overpower nurture? - What is the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation? Timestamps: 1:54 Our Education System is Obsolete 9:10 AI Tutors, 10x Learning 23:38 Confidence Can Be Taught 36:33 Universities In The Age of AI 40:14 How to Get Kids to Love School 42:22 External vs. Intrinsic Motivation 54:20 We Pay Kids Cold Hard Cash 1:02:13 Kids Want More School
Johnathan Bi568,043 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten
The supernatural is real: levitation, reincarnation, near death experiences, remote viewing… Not only do these “impossible” phenomena occur, they are well documented and often by secular scholars nonetheless. There are entire labs out of Duke, Stanford, Princeton, University of Virginia that have come up with compelling evidence of the supernatural that cannot be absorbed into a materialist frame. This is the claim of my guest Princeton’s Dale Allison in his new book: encountering mystery. So why haven’t we heard any of this? When I read Allison’s impressive survey of this phenomena my first reaction was not shock but anger: why haven’t I in my 20+ years of education ever been made aware of this radical data and the Copernican shift it seems to suggest? Dale’s answer is that this has all been systematically suppressed by not just atheists but the religious as well. This data is threatening not just for the materialist worldview but most religious traditions as well. In fact you are going to hear how atheism itself is an outgrowth of certain sects of Christianity. In this interview you are going to learn about all the mind-blowing empirical data for the supernatural and what this tells us ontologically about the world we live in. Timestamps: 2:11 Two Books Every Materialist Must Confront 8:17 Consciousness Doesn’t Come From the Brain 14:27 Materialism is Fundamentalism for Atheists 33:36 Miracles Don’t Confirm Religions 44:33 Why Christians Fear the Miraculous 1:14:19 How Satan Was Invented 1:16:56 Buddhism vs. Christianity
Johnathan Bi404,552 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
America was founded on a revolutionary idea: Greed is Good. How highly America’s founders elevated acquisition & wealth is unprecedented in the history of ideas. • For Plato, producers are the lowest of the tripartite division in the Republic • The Confucian tradition ranked merchants as the lowest class • In Hinduism, workers are the lowest caste with merchants being the second lowest. • The Bible depicts labor on earth as a punishment for humanity’s transgressions: you will eat bread by the sweat of your brow. The common thread within these classical traditions is the idea that work is undignified and that a life focused on wealth produces a petty soul. What’s surprising about America’s founders then is not just how highly they elevate acquisition but why they did so. They valued the formative consequences of acquisition on the character of citizens! Their reasoning flips the classical traditions on its head: work is the most fertile soil to produce virtues necessary for scientific enterprise, familial life, and civic action. The founders didn't just embrace commerce. They reconceived human nature around it. They built a system where work becomes your identity, where acquisition has no natural limit. And they knew what they were giving up. The founders looked at the imagination, at religiosity, at Plato’s Eros -- the deepest longings of the human soul -- and ejected them for being too dangerous for a commercial republic. On America’s 250th, I’ve invited the legendary UT philosopher Thomas Pangle to discuss the magnificent power and terrible cost of turning greed from vice to virtue, and whether America’s founders would be happy with those tradeoffs if they saw America today. Timestamps: 0:00 0. Introduction 0:34 1. Commerce and the Republic 22:26 2. Human Nature and the Life of the Mind 55:27 3. Religion and the Founding 1:07:04 4. America's Political Innovations 1:23:45 5. Has America Betrayed Its Founding Principles? 1:31:54 6. The Great Thinkers that Influenced America
Johnathan Bi43,110 Aufrufe • vor 17 Tagen
For Machiavelli, the ideal ruthless political operator is Moses. Above Caesar, above Alexander, above Cesare Borgia… it is Moses that Machiavelli holds up as the model of how to enter into evil. How can this be anything but blasphemy? When we think of Moses we think: good, honest, humble, compassionate. When we think of Machiavelli we think: evil, deceptive, prideful, violent. How can Moses be Machiavelli's model of entering into evil when he is literally the lawgiver who established the Ten Commandments? Machiavelli responds, look at how he established those commandments: “since he wished his laws and his orders to go forward, Moses was forced to kill infinite men who, moved by nothing other than envy, were opposed to his plans.” If you read the Bible closely, you will see Moses massacre, deceive, genocide… all for the greater good. This is why he was Machiavelli’s favorite leader: someone who was willing to do what was necessary to achieve the most noble goals. Machiavelli highlights Moses to teach the few and not the many. He wrote his books to teach those “rare and marvellous men” that come once every few hundred years how to achieve the grandest political projects: the founding of states, civilizations, and even religions. His chief lesson is this: always being good makes you weak and effeminate, you will lose to those who aren’t. Good people make terrible leaders. As a leader you must operate on a different set of rules than everyone else. It is good that you are selfish, it is good that you have a lust for glory. You must be willing to cheat, lie, murder if necessary. But you must do all of this while appearing to be good: like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That is what you will learn in this lecture: why and how to enter into evil… as Moses did. Timestamps: 1:49 Moses: The Machiavellian Mastermind 7:12 True Religious Leaders Use Violence 12:12 Politics Requires Lying 20:54 Spare Your Enemies… Or Eliminate Them 30:33 Cruelty In The Service of Good 39:24 Machiavelli Wasn’t a Machiavellian 45:31 Force: The Ultimate Machiavellian Virtue 54:41 Why Harry Truman Didn’t Feel Guilty About The Nukes
Johnathan Bi386,839 Aufrufe • vor 7 Monaten
Two years ago, I witnessed a Christian miracle, but I did not convert. Not because I thought the miracle was fraudulent — I think it was genuine — but because of the existence of other genuine miracles in competing religious traditions. Even more frustrating, these traditions give the same unconvincing explanations of the others’ miracles: demons, fraud or, at best, lesser revelations. Christian holy men tell me Buddhism has been hijacked by Satan. Buddhist monastics tell me Christ is a Bodhisattva for a lesser civilization not ready for the ultimate truth. I don’t find any of these answers compelling. So how is one to decide between competing religious claims? This is the burning question that has motivated my seeker’s journey for the past few years and my guest Rice University’s Jeff Kripal has given me the most compelling response yet. After two years of talking with every religious scholar/practitioner/monastic I could find, it is this interview that I find most convincing by far. He figured it out. Now let me be clear, what I find so compelling is less so Jeff’s answer, and more his method. Jeff takes seriously 1. the miraculous claims of all orthodox religions, but also 2. the modern critiques of those religions: biblical criticism, science, Freud, Feuerbach. And last but not least he also integrates 3. the contemporary supernatural: near death experiences, remote viewing, UAPs, telepathy, reincarnation research. Jeff is the only religious scholar I know who not only takes these three seemingly incompatible spheres seriously but has integrated them into a unifying theory. And if you are at all curious about the religious question I cannot recommend Jeff’s work enough for both scholars and seekers. Timestamps: 4:07 Against Western Monotheism 33:58 Against Eastern Religion 52:50 Against Materialism 1:23:11 Fraudulent Miracles? 1:31:52 Dual Aspect Monism 1:49:47 The Historicity of Miracles 1:55:39 The Ethics of Mysticism
Johnathan Bi123,094 Aufrufe • vor 2 Monaten
You’ve been reading Nietzsche completely wrong. He wasn’t an atheist. He was a mystic. 1. His great work, Zarathustra, is a religious text inspired by a mystical experience in Switzerland. 2. Nietzsche had a precognitive dream that shaped his metaphysics: as a young boy he dreamed of his dead father rising from the grave and taking his infant brother … who soon fell ill and died. 3. People read his claims that he was “Buddha” and “Dionysius” as madness. Yet those are his most profound statements. 4. He hated not Christ but Christianity. In short, Nietzsche is spiritual but not religious. This is the claim of my guest Rice University’s Jeff Kripal who will give us a mystical reading of Nietzsche’s Übermensch. Jeff himself is a scholar of mysticism who had a transformative mystical experience while researching Hinduism in Calcutta as a young man. Jeff witnessed the erotic presence of a Hindu goddess as a grad student decades ago, and has since been wrestling with his experience through his writing. His ambition is for his writing to engender similar mystical states in your life and he sees the same mystical inspiration in Nietzsche. These interviews with Jeff have been the most transformative I’ve ever done since starting this project. As a religious seeker I haven’t found a contemporary scholar who is able to tie together classical religion, the great books, and new age spirituality in one philosophical framework quite as Jeff has. What you are going to hear in this interview then isn’t just a new way to read Nietzsche, but a new way to read the entire canon as mystical. Plato, Dante, Homer, Fuerbach, James, Hegel we’ve been reading all of these thinkers completely wrong as we have with Nietzsche. Jeff is leading nothing less than a Copernican revolt against the materialist orthodoxy of the humanities. Timestamps: 2:42 The Übermensch Will Replace Humanity 7:38 Great Thinkers are Divinely Inspired 11:30 Nietzsche is a Mystical Thinker 16:09 Why Most People Misread Nietzsche 35:22 The Evidence for Prophecy 54:21 Holy Men Are Egomaniacs 1:18:33 Nietzsche Loved Christ but Hated Christians 1:30:04 Why Books Engender Mystical states 2:07:37 Why The Humanities Have Failed 2:23:05 All Philosophy Is Disguised Mysticism
Johnathan Bi163,447 Aufrufe • vor 4 Monaten
1% of the world own 43% of the wealth. 1% of startups drive over 80% of returns. This power law is even stronger with books: 1% of books contain all the important ideas. My new lecture series will take you through the only books you'll ever need. Watch the launch trailer:
Johnathan Bi776,721 Aufrufe • vor 2 Jahren
I’m fascinated with history’s thinker-doers: Cicero, Marcus Aurelius, Benjamin Franklin. There’s no greater achievement than calling your shots: laying out a theoretical worldview, then executing ruthlessly to bend reality. There exist people like this today, who write a manifesto and go build a $100B company on top. And I’m launching a new Cosmos Institute series to interview these modern greats, featuring Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, Jim O’Shaughnessy and more detailed in the thread below👇 If you feel pulled both by the joys of understanding and the thrill of action, this series is a masterclass on how to integrate the two. The inaugural episode today is with Colin Moran, founder of one of the best-performing, multi-billion hedge funds on wall street in the last 20 years. And yet, he couldn’t be further from your average money-manager: Colin is a devout Christian whose primary concern is rescuing Catholic art, music, and architecture. He studied intellectual history at Duke and Oxford and wanted to be an academic. His fund is not run by quants of ivy-league athletes but a nerdy group of humanities scholars who studied classics, theology, musicology, and history. Colin analyzes each company as if close reading a Great Book. And he attributes his best investments to following his intellectual curiosity: writing an academic essay on the nature of creativity, for example, resulted in one of his best investments in Shopify. He calls this process “following the fun”… it turns out the best way to make money is not to think about making money. Timestamps: 2:09 How to Read a Company as a Text 5:58 Follow The Fun, the Money Will Come 11:54 Great Founders: Autistic, Megalomaniac, or Vengeful 15:46 The Limits of Reason in Investing and Faith 25:40 Colin’s Intellectual Influence: John Henry Newman 32:03 Faith and Investing Share Uncertainty 47:58 Colin’s Story From Ivory Tower to Wall Street 1:15:37 Classical Liberals vs. National Conservatives 1:23:10 Judaism and Christianity: A Marriage of Convenience?
Johnathan Bi236,572 Aufrufe • vor 10 Monaten
1. Jesus never claimed to be God 2. His prophecy of imminent apocalypse failed 3. The Gospels contradict each other 4. The historical evidence for resurrection is inconclusive These are the beliefs of my guest, Princeton’s Dale Allison, after a lifetime of study. These are not uncommon positions among New Testament historians as methods of historical criticism have overturned orthodox belief. What is uncommon here is how Allison has responded to his new beliefs. Whereas most scholars who arrive at these positions become atheist, Allison remains a practicing, devoted christian who follows Jesus. In a way, his religious practice has become even stronger due to these beliefs. In this interview, you are going to learn how Professor Allison, after much struggle, came to these uncomfortable critical positions and what Christianity means for him now. Timestamps: 0:42 Jesus Never Claimed to Be God 13:42 The Gospels are Not Theological Treaties 18:04 What Did Jesus Think of Himself? 24:20 Between Gnosticism and Heresy 26:41 Do You Need the Nicene Creed to Be Christian? 29:57 The End of the World is 2,000 Years Late 54:28 God Must Win 1:00:54 The Historical Evidence of the Resurrection 1:23:23 History vs. Theology
Johnathan Bi144,980 Aufrufe • vor 5 Monaten
America needs a natural aristocracy. Aristocracy just means “rule by the best” and Joe Lonsdale argues that it is an idea that is unduly demonized. Artificial, hereditary aristocracies are indeed a corrupting force, but to reject the idea that the most competent should rule is equally dangerous. By rejecting Aristocracy altogether, we don’t unleash democracy we get bureaucracy: a geriatric slop that will suffocate a civilization if not eradicated. This is what is plaguing America today. Joe Lonsdale is the closest thing you’ll find to a Roman senator, someone who acts courageously in politics, commerce, and the military informed by a classical understanding of virtue. And this interview will tease out Lonsdale’s political philosophy that underlies all of his ventures: Palantir, UATX, Cicero and 8VC. Timestamps: 1:50 Change Requires a Demanding Philosophy 3:17 America’s Problem: No Aristocracy 8:34 In a World of Machiavellis, Be a Cyrus 10:51 The World Can’t Afford Our Absence 21:43 Democracy Dies in Bureaucracy 30:48 How Cicero Institute Writes Philosophy Into Bills 32:38 Measuring Who Gets Help First 44:04 When Buyers Become Too Powerful 50:04 The Philosophy Behind Palantir
Johnathan Bi162,067 Aufrufe • vor 9 Monaten
Canadians scoff at America's inequality, yet the best in Canada immigrate to it. We come here precisely for this inequality and the unbounded limits of achievement it opens up. In Canada, all humans are given more respect regardless of their achievements. Society is materially and socially more equal. But when you are given a participation trophy for doing nothing, for just being a human, there isn't the same hunger for success. The same sentiments of equality so hospitable to the majority is suffocating for the ambitious.
Johnathan Bi135,072 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
This is the wildest interview I’ve ever done. It led to me witnessing a literal Christian miracle! Yale's Carlos Eire provides robust evidence that Christians actually LEVITATED!! His new book on the subject is named: They Flew. This book isn’t wild speculation but rigorous scholarship by one of the most respected historians in the world. As an agnostic, I was so suspicious before picking it up, but by the time I put it down, I was awestruck by the overwhelming historical evidence that Carlos presented. In fact, I was so shook by this book, that I ended up chasing down a rumor in Pennsylvania (w/ Jeremy Giffon) where both of us witnessed a literal Christian miracle with our own eyes (I discuss with Carlos at 26:52). If you listen to this interview with an open mind, it will radically transform how you see the world. Even if you remain suspicious about the reality of miracles, you will see how central thinking about miracles has been to philosophy, history, technology, and even science. Timestamps: 05:38 Joseph of Cupertino: Levitating Saint 26:52 I Witnessed a Miracle 36:29 How the Catholic Church Uses Science to Test Miracles 1:09:53 The Devil Worked “Miracles” Too 1:15:05 Martin Luther Saw the Devil Everywhere 1:19:55 Belief in the Devil ENDED Witch Hunts 1:37:05 Technology and the Miraculous 1:42:21 Why Miracles Started Popping up in “the Age of Reason” 1:45:42 It’s Rational to Believe in Miracles 1:49:10 Buddhists Miracles are Cooler than Christian Ones 2:05:22 What is the Purpose of Miracles in Christianity?
Johnathan Bi187,719 Aufrufe • vor 1 Jahr
It’s rare to find someone who is a thinker and a doer. My guest Jim O’Shaughnessy is one of them: a legendary Wall Street investor who has an unquenchable thirst for the humanities. I met Jim a couple of years ago when he first interviewed me on Girard and we became fast friends because of how rare that combination is. And then, I met one of his sons Patrick, who has also become a friend. Patrick studied philosophy at Notre Dame and is now one of the top venture capitalists. I thought: Huh? Rarer still. As I was preparing for this interview, I came across a book written about Jim’s grandfather IA O'Shaughnessy who was one of the most successful oilmen in the 20th century, trained in the liberal arts, and was the largest donor to Notre Dame who endowed the humanities building. It’s rare enough to synthesize action and contemplation in one individual: how does one sustain that across now four generations? That’s what we will begin this interview discussing before talking about how Jim’s love of the humanities shaped his varied career across finance, media, and philanthropy. Timestamps: 2:38 Humanities: The Entrepreneur’s Last Edge 18:46 Philosophy Applied To Life 27:29 Religion is a Power Play 30:24 The Eastern/Western Overlap 35:59 Psychoanalyzing Wall Street 46:03 Investing Requires Encyclopedic Knowledge 1:06:29 Betting on Culture in The AI Age 1:30:51 Mind-Body Divide: A Western Ailment
Johnathan Bi55,368 Aufrufe • vor 6 Monaten